


To Be Seen

by RosemaryBagels



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Demons, Gotham is kindof a supernatural melting pot, M/M, Magic, Tim needs a hug, Undead, fae
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-24 14:14:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8375314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosemaryBagels/pseuds/RosemaryBagels





	

“I’m not a mage, Jason.”

“Why not? You’ve got enough power for it. Don’t you?” Jason struggled to keep the yellow cape straight as he clambered out of the batmobile after Bruce. Usually Bruce would hang back and wait for him but the nature of the subject made him more… prickly than usual.

“It’s more than just power that makes a mage. It takes time and training.”

“But didn’t you already do so much training? Why not get more?”

Jason had asked this question so many times. Bruce often ended the conversation there, leaving the room or offering a distraction. Sometimes he said something about the structure of mage apprenticeship, but those only provided useless details. Nothing that made a difference to Bruce’s particular choice.

But today. Today was different. Bruce sighed, and pinched his cowl, right over the bridge of his nose, before pulling it down so Jason could see his face.

“I wasn’t always this way, Jason. And after what happened,” Bruce halted, seemingly fighting with himself. “No one would take me as an apprentice.”

And suddenly Bruce just looked sad and exhausted, which Jason had never seen before, and he wanted to start forward- Say something- but then the moment was gone and Bruce spun on his heels and walked away.

Jason wouldn’t ask again.

.

Dick Grayson, Tim realised within about two weeks of being Robin, was definitely a mage. He was never flashy about it, so many on the streets couldn’t have guessed it, but he didn’t bother to hide it in the batcave, and he probably couldn’t have stopped the blue sparks snapping from his fingers if he wanted to, given how loud he was yelling at Bruce.

Time didn’t entirely understand why it mattered so much that he was Robin. He wasn’t the first replacement - that was Jason - and though the wound from his death would never heal…

Bruce’s Mageblood was weak at best, but it had been augmented in some way, probably by the Lazarus pit or perhaps a demon. Dick was Mageblood through and through, with most technique coming to him automatically, and the rest taught to him by teachers he would have hired after he left Bruce’s charge.

Jason had been human. Well, as human as you could get while still calling Gotham home.

And Tim was.

His mother was at least half Siren. The well known Siren traits were only passed down to female children, but all Fae blood had some effect on its children.

There were some odd issues with the Drake bloodline, so for the sake of healthy offspring Tim’s parents agreed and found a sperm donor. Though they paid good money for a pure human seed, such things didn’t really exist in Gotham. And since Fae pregnancies were tricky enough as it is, they decided to forgo travel, and love whatever child they ended up with.

The donor was of mixed bloodlines, but a fair chunk of it was Undead. And the blending of that with the recalcitrant fae magic is undoubtedly what made Tim his own special kind of weird.

He didn’t stick in people’s memories the way he should. He could persuade people to see or do things out of the ordinary. And it wasn’t even magic, exactly, that required a casting. And it was detectable. He and Bruce had run all kinds of experiments. Cast magic was traceable, but magic inherent within a person? Close enough to be part of their identity? That was nearly impossible to find.

Tim didn’t have to cast to do magical things. He just was.

And he wanted to tell Dick it didn’t matter if he died. It had already happened once, when he was small. He just walked back home. It took three days. His parents never even noticed he was gone.

There were very few things that could hurt both Fae and Undead.

And based on the tests he’d done with his own blood, he doubted he could be fully put down by anything of them.

.

“Who are you?” The man in the Red Hood snapped, as Tim sidestepped a bullet that wasn’t properly aimed, because this man couldn’t really see him.

“I’m Robin.”

The words still didn’t sit well on his tongue. But at least they had stopped stinging like lies.

.

“I changed my mind,” Jason said, a month later, pulling down his hood on abandoned rooftop, after another failed attempt to even get a hit on Robin. “I don’t care who you are. I want to know what you are.”

.

Jason smelled. It took Tim a few encounters to realise it was indeed Jason, purely because of how wrong he felt, but once he did he couldn’t unknow it. Un-feel it. He smelt like Jason and dirt with the acrid sting of Lazarus burning in his eyes with every inhale. And the magic. It wasn’t quite Undead, but it was twisted in the same way, and every time Tim tried to pay attention to it he felt like he would throw up, so he’d stopped.

There was one benefit though. Jason could never sneak up on him.

Never, ever, ever, because every time he was even close, every nerve Tim had would be screaming every piece of data it could, his location, heart rate, did he smell like sweat or gunpowder or…

Tim took a shot for Nightwing one night.

It should have been fatal. Jason knew that. Tim didn’t let Dick see, and didn’t let him remember long enough to tell Batman, so when Tim walked back from being dead to appear right beside Jason he scared the living daylights out of him.

“But I-- but I killed you.”

Tim had only smirked, then gracefully leapt off the building.

And he laughed as Jason screamed in horror as he fell, only to pull out his grapple gun and fly away into the night.

.

Damian was different.

He made Tim very happy to be invisible, because he was terrifying. Mostly because he smelled like Ra’s rather than anything he particularly did, but still.

Bruce’s power was obviously from a Demon, probably a contract gone wrong and terminated before it was finalised. Bruce’s Mageblood, or possibly luck, kept that from being obvious.

If he used magic it was obvious, but in it’s dormant state he could pass for Mageborn.

Damian, not so much.

He looked, smelled, and acted like a demon.

A small one, with power despite a weak bloodline. But still. Anyone who could sense magic could tell there was something up within seconds of meeting him.

Which made his arrogance even more likely to get him in trouble.

Tim was forever grateful to Cass and Steph, for making the manor bearable and giving him a place to escape to, respectively. Cass’s half Whisp status made her even more ghostlike than he was, which would never stop being slightly unsettling. And Steph’s blood would always be volatile, the hints of werewolf and mage often clashing unexpectedly and violently.

Tim’s blood didn’t fight itself like that, but as he was growing he’d had no idea what to expect. And like her, there was no one to learn from. She, like Tim before her, would make things up as she went along.

And they were good. For a while.

.

But the thing was, the more times he walked back from death, the more disconnected he got. Jason was Undead, but was either up or down permanently, he couldn’t use the Between like Tim could. Cass was fae, but Glyphs were only really about nature magic, and didn’t have much power anyway, so she could never survive what Tim did on a semi-regular basis.

Tim dreamed about wandering through the sea of endless grey, with no landmarks, yet still knowing exactly where he was. He sometimes found himself distractedly wandering the edge between this world and the beyond.

He’d never stepped into it willingly. 

There was a possibility that if he chose too, he could walk the other path, there in the Between, and then actually be dead.

And yet. And yet.

.

“Where are you?” Jason’s voice growled as soon as Tim picked up his phone.

“Uh. At home? In bed, trying to sleep?”

“You aren’t showing up on the cameras.”

Tim sighed.

“It happens sometimes, Jason. It’s just a thing my body’s magic does. It’s normal, and nothing worth panicking over.”

“How convincing,” Jason groused.

“Ask Bruce if you doubt me,” Tim snapped, then instantly regretted it. It was never a good idea to bring him up to Jason.

“Okay, fine.” Jason sounded as if he were trying to keep the sullen tone out of his voice, and wasn’t quite succeeding. “Sorry for bothering you.”

Then he hung up.

That bastard.

.

“How are you?” Jason asked, as he passed Tim a pumpkin spice latte. It was warm for autumn, but the wind was brisk, so Tim was glad for the warmth it provided.

He took a sip of the beverage. Perfect.

“I’m fine.”

“Still thinking about headed to college?”

“I don’t…” Tim sighed. He didn’t really want to have this conversation. Not with Dick, not with Bruce, not with anyone.

“It’s the undead thing, right? You must have noticed it too, right?”

“What?” Tim asked, his voice icy.

“We’re stronger in Gotham,” Jason nearly whispered. “People are used to looking for our kind here. And you’re already so invisible, maybe people out there might not see you at all.”

Tim had to admit, Jason really hit the nail on the head with that.

“Is that why you aren’t going?” he asked eventually.

“It’s hard to remember how to be me when people can’t really see me,” Jason responded.

“I know,” Tim whispered. But he wasn’t sure Jason heard him.

.

“Why me?” Tim asked, eyes light with tears to find Jason outside his door, flowers in hand, asking for a date.

“No one comes back through that grey untouched Tim. And since I’ve come back, you’re the only one I can truly see. Like everyone else is faded or wispy, but you. You’re bright. Clear and crisp. In full colour. And when the world twists, and it feels like everything’s fading into the grey again… You anchor me.”

“Jason. Jason? Can you really see me?” It was too much to hope for. Too good to be true. To terrifying, Tim had never been seen, it was new, and he didn’t--

Jason stepped forward. And made eye contact. Direct eye contact, and Tim had never felt it before, felt he could drown in the pools of soullight leaking from Jason’s eyes…

“I see you,” Jason whispered.

“You see me,” Tim reaffirmed.

And the sweeping wave of joy Tim felt left him speechless. But Jason saw him, and understood.


End file.
